A Jester’s Fortune

'Such terms, sir…' Kolodzcy puzzled. 'Bud, even zo, it may be bossible. Ja, sir. Ohf gourse. Ve are agreed.'

'Good!' Rodgers hooted, clapping his hands together. 'Then it only awaits this 'dead-muzzier' of a Sirocco wind to back or veer, and we're out of harbour by sundown. And on our way. About our… business.'

'A vahry exellend champagne, Kapitan Rodgers.' Kolodzcy beamed slyly. 'Undil dhen, perhaps ve may share annoder boddle, nicht wahr? Unt, I am thinkink… vhen do we dine?'

Book IV

Hospita vobis terra, Viri, non hie ullos

reverenta ritus pectora;

mors habitat saevaeque hoc litore pugnae.

No friendly land is this to you, O Heroes,

here are no hearts that reverence any rites;

this shore is the home of death and cruel combats.

Argonautica, Book IV, 145-147

Gaius Valerius Flaccus

CHAPTER 1

The general was happy, nigh to Seventh Heaven.

The very day of his return to conquered Milan, his centre of operations-laden with the paintings, the statuary, the silver and gilt masterpieces of the southern kingdoms, bedecked with glory, new fame to fuel his dreams and with forty million francs of solid specie to support the patrie-Josephine had come, at last.

Nigh to a second, blissful honeymoon, her presence seemed, after such a long wait. So fortuitously timed, too, in that glorious hiatus between the first arduous conquests and the near-bloodless but brutal | marches to the south. Even the Austrians conspired to spare the young general, to give him this joyous rencontre with his beloved bride, and peace enough in which to enjoy it, for the new Austrian commander General Wurmser had yet to arrive from the Rhine with his fresh armies.

'A terrible risk, but I tweaked their noses,' General Bonaparte boasted, 'I got my way, thank God.'

'A terrible risk, indeed.' Josephine frowned. 'You know Paul and the rest of the Directory can be so arbitrary. Really, my dear…'

'There could not be two generals in charge here in Italy, sweet one.' Bonaparte chuckled. 'I could not serve under Kellermann, though he's the hero of Valmy. He's so old, so set in his hidebound old ways. It i would have been two dancing-masters doing a minuet with each other, Kellerman and Wurmser, and I relegated to the southern campaign, robbed of troops and unable to cow Tuscany, much less Rome.'

'Promise me you will never threaten to resign, again, mon cher,' Josephine admonished him, as the brilliant salon and its hundreds of guests-willing or unwilling-swirled about them. 'Heroes, even a successful hero, are expendable. To play at politics so far removed from the latest gossip, your supporters…'

'The lifeblood of politics,' the elegant young aide, Lieutenant Hyppolyte Charles, simpered from the offhand side.

'The army would have been divided into threes,' Bonaparte said, regarding Lt. Hyppolyte Charles with a wary eye. 'Part to besiege Mantua, part under Kellermann to dance the old way against the Austrians… and I, the smallest part, sent off on errands, too far removed to aid Kellermann when the Austrians attacked him. And attacked him they very well would have. Wurmser, Beaulieu, they would have understood General Kellermann and his methods. He would have offered nothing novel. He'd not frighten them… as I do.'

'But before you defeated the south and won their tribute, mon cher, your threat was empty. And far too brash,' Josephine belaboured, fanning herself as if faint with dread at her husband's daring. And sharing a look of puzzlement with her escort, Lt. Hyppolyte Charles.

'No matter, ma cherie. It worked. I alone command in Italy,' Bonaparte bragged. 'Anything else would have spelled disaster, and I alone prevented it. And will present the good Paul de Barras and the Directory even more victories. Within a week, I believe. Do you fear for me, ma cherie? Ma biche?'

'Husband…' Josephine all but writhed in mortification to be so addressed in public, to be called 'his little doe,' for she was not that affectionate a woman. 'Of course I fear. The able man is envied, the hero must be cut down to size by paper-shufflers and intriguers-'

'Ah, but I will not be cut down to size, ma cherie,' Bonaparte confided, leaning close to her, to infuse himself with her womanly aromas. After so many months…! 'At Lodi, I realised something about myself. By the bridge, with battalion after battalion surging forward beside me… I am not a run-of-the-mill being. Not a lesser being at all. I will rise above all the rest. I will make history.'

And the sureness in his voice, the strange, fey brilliance in his eyes, which blazed with such certitude, almost frightened her. What sort of fellow had she married, then? Josephine wondered, not for the first time. So passionate, so ardent, so intent and cocksure over everything he did, so capable of trampling roughshod over anyone and anything that stood in the way of what he wanted. So impressive, so confident, he'd seemed, though he wasn't amusing in the slightest, had no easy personal charms… no savoir faire. What a folly their marriage was, a patriotic gushing over a bull-calf of a schoolboy turned soldier. No matter how successful, how slim and attractive… he smothered her. She'd written a friend, Madame Theresia Tallien, 'My husband doesn't love me, he adores me! I think he'll go mad.'

She shared another covert glance over the top of her fan with the dashing young Lieutenant Charles, a glance to which Bonaparte was oblivious. He was far too happy, this day.

Months and months he'd written her, almost daily. She wrote in reply every fourth day at best, when his passionate, adoring heart craved two a day from her. Short, curt, gossipy inconsquentials were those few letters, too. Why, she'd even addressed him formally, called him 'vous'!

Once Piedmont had been beaten, he'd sent for her, written the army to allow her to come down to Turin or Milan, and they'd acceded. He'd sent the dashing young cavalry genius Joachim Murat from his own staff of aide- de-camps to fetch her. Yet, when Murat had gotten to Paris, he'd had to report that she'd been ill, retired to the country… and very possibly pregnant. Of course, with his child, Bonaparte was certain. Weeks, months more of chilly correspondence, then she'd finally come! With Murat as her escort. And with the rakishly handsome Lt. Hyppolyte Charles of the First Hussars on her other arm.

And no child.

Lieutenant Charles was slim, courteous, so elegant in his red Hussar uniform with the pelisse slung by silver chains over his left shoulder, silver-trimmed and edged with fox fur. He wore red leather tasseled boots and spurs. Ah, well, he made her laugh, Bonaparte thought resignedly.

'Manners of a hairdresser's assistant,' Massena said with a sneer, from his side of the room. 'God, what a pig's arse she turned out to be.'

'Our 'incomparable' Josephine.' Augereau snickered in kind. 'I don't suppose anyone should actually tell him what those two have been up to? As if he doesn't know?'

'Do you actually think he'd listen?' Massena snorted. 'Christ, you'd think… does a woman wish a lover, she'd go for a real man, not that primping mannequin. Cavalry! Shit!'

'At least a real cavalryman… like Murat, then,' Augereau opined. 'Or do you think.'…?' He leered like a starving fox.

'Too fair,' Massena countered, snagging them two fresh glasses of wine from a passing server. 'Note how she